Senior Vice President of Investments

Waymo: Alphabet’s Next Billion Dollar Disruptor

By Victor Anthony

We believe Waymo is in the pole position to both lead and dominate the emerging self-driving/Autonomous Vehicle (AV) industry, one Waymo largely pioneered for commercial use within Google as the self-driving car project. Waymo has an early lead in developing self-driving technology (they were first to complete a fully self-driving trip on public roads) and they have a clear advantage in the number of miles driven (more than 4 million). As such, Waymo is set up to reap a substantial percentage of the economic rewards of what industry groups have identified as a developing $7 trillion global industry TAM in transportation as a service (TAAS), over the next three decades, as vehicle ownership, car rentals, taxis, and public transportation get disrupted. The AV opportunity for Alphabet could one day be potentially bigger than Google’s search business, as Waymo capitalizes on the opportunity in ride-hailing or ridesharing, freight delivery, public transportation, and licensing of their technology. This initial report on Waymo is the first in a series that explores TAAS and AV, as we look to see what’s next for Alphabet that could drive its valuation above the one trillion dollar mark.